LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to somethingover there only because I amhere. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the pastas past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

PBS's *The Abolitionists* Begins Tonight

Tonight PBS’s The
American Experience broadcasts the first in a three part series titled “The
Abolitionists.” The program will be available for online streaming
for about a month, though I’m not sure if that means after each episode or only
after all three have been broadcast.

When we first began the task of tackling the history of abolitionism four
years ago, we were faced with a daunting task: the movement spanned decades, the
leaders were numerous, the history complicated and the scholarly literature
voluminous. And yet there was no book that told the overarching story of the
abolitionists, and no guide for capturing the courage and struggles of these
remarkable civil rights heroes. We decided that the way to grab the attention of
a broad television audience was to focus on a handful of key characters -- that
is, to create a character-driven mini-series set against the backdrop of a
tumultuous time in American history.

So you know how this will work. Very clean impersonators
in streets and and paths without mud, manure and expectorate, and in light-filled
rooms with billowing curtains, dressed in perfectly tailored period costumes,
emoting with every facial muscle, while an authoritative narrator tells us
what the character is doing or thinking, followed by another authoritative flat oration
voice-over reading the words the characters have written, followed by yet
another cut-away to actual authorities – various professors, etc. – sitting in
some neutral space, telling us what it all means and how it happened. Alas,
boring. But it is cheap.

Several teaching aids that go with the program are accessible
online, such as this
interactive abolitionists’ location map which is interesting and
useful. It should be helpful for the very many middle and high
schools whose budgets have been slashed and deboned for teaching an aspect of
our history that has been nearly forgotten since the southern coup that
ended Reconstruction. There were abolitionists already active from the colonial era. By the
days of manifest destiny the number of abolitionists who made abolition their
life’s calling and for which they dedicated everything they
had grew constantly in the years between the Mexican American War an the
Civil War. Their efforts and effect have been forgotten, elided, or derided as
criminal in the long years of revisionism since the Civil War. It’s good to see
a focus on them in this era, in which the real truth of these matters is once
again coming into public consciousness.